Every media observer with a pulse continues to believe that News Corp’s acquisition of MySpace was the most brilliant M&A move of the digital age — and the view from the other side continues to be a lonely watch.

Massachusetts on Tuesday called on popular teen social networking Web site MySpace.com to strengthen protection of children against sexual predators, including raising the minimum age for users to 18 from 14.

The arrest on Tuesday of a 27-year-old man in Connecticut on charges of illegal sexual contact with a 13-year-old girl he met through MySpace underlines the risks of the fast-growing Internet site that boasts about 60 million members.

“MySpace has not taken sufficient steps to ensure that the MySpace Web site is a safe place for minors,” Massachusetts Attorney General Tom Reilly said in a letter to MySpace.

He said a three-month investigation found that potential child predators were surfing MySpace seeking chats with potential victims and violent images or content were being posted to bully children.

“AOL wants to have its cake and eat it, too. It wants a family system that appeals to kids. It also wants to keep making money off the hot- chat crowd. And it’s terrified that the Microsoft Network is going to eat its lunch, so it’s selling harder than ever.

Unfortunately, in the process it’s built a system that makes it easy for predators to operate, and has then turned around and aggressively marketed it to prey. AOL had better figure something out. As it stands, this is not going to end well for it. “

[...] The real ceremony takes place June 12th in New York, where someone will have to try and beat Al Gore’s five-word acceptance speech – “Please don’t recount this vote.” All the award winners are restricted to five-word speeches, and anyone who’s stuck for an idea can always fall back on “thank you all very much.” The Webby Awards website listed some of the Special Achievement award winners in a statement. Newly controversial MySpace founders Tom Anderson and Chris DeWolfe will receive the Webby Breakout of the Year award. That’s sure to delight Scott Karp at the Publishing 2.0 blog. The Gorillaz have been dubbed Webby’s Artist of the Year, while Thomas Friedman, New York Times columnist and Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The World is Flat: A Brief History of The 21st Century, snares the Webby Person of the Year award. Dr. Robert Kahn, co-inventor of TCP/IP, picks up the award that Gore received last year, the Lifetime Achievement Award. Maybe his speech will be “keep on sending those packets.” The Webby tradition has been to limit acceptance speeches to five words. We’ll be very impressed to see what the Webby Entrepreneur of the Year, the loquacious Mark Cuban, can accomplish in five words. A full list of the 69 winners of the Webby Awards, as well as the People’s Choice selections and all of the nominees, may be viewed online. — Tag: Webby Awards Add to document.write(“Del.icio.us”) | DiggThis | Yahoo! My Web | Furl Bookmark WebProNews: View All Articles by David A. Utter Receive Our Daily Email of Breaking eBusiness News About the Author: David Utter is a staff writer for WebProNews covering technology and business. More top_news_top_news Articles Contact WebProNews [...]